bjorkfandomcom-20200213-history
Atom Dance (song)
"Atom Dance" is a song by Björk from her ninth studio album, ''Vulnicura''. It features vocals from ANOHNI, who also collaborated with Björk on "The Dull Flame of Desire" off her 2007 album Volta. Background The song was written by Björk and Oddný Eir, who also co-wrote "Moon" from 2011's Biophilia, and produced by Björk and Arca. The song was written in 5/4 musical metre and inspired by Sufi poems and Vikivaki, a Scandinavian circular dance, and the lyrics are about the art of loving. Björk's description of the song from a 2016 interview:Hooton, Christopher (September 6, 2016). "Björk on autographs and selfies: ‘In Iceland no-one is more important than the next so they’re kinda silly’". Independent. Atom Dance was def an attempt to tap into the atoms rotating and the celebrational element of Sufi or the Icelandic or Northern equivalent of it: Vikivaki. These are cyclical round dances and I felt the pentagonic 5/4 was very appropriate somehow? On Red Bull's Couch Wisdom interview in September 2017, she explained the song in detail:Warren, Emma (September 25, 2017). "Couch Wisdom: Björk". Red Bull Music Academy. On Vulnicura a song called “Atom Dance” was my attempt to kind of address this in a very very roundabout way, because I was reading Sufi poems and being very obsessed with this kind of devotional Sufism. Then I was like, “How would I do this in Icelandic? We must’ve had this, but it was just suffocated by the rednecks,” or something. And then just finding it and looking for it, and actually that’s the one lyric on Vulnicura I co-wrote with someone, with my very good friend Oddný Eir who is a philosopher/author, and we talk a lot about stuff. We actually wrote that lyric together trying to make a Icelandic/Vikivaki/Sufi song and one of the reasons it’s in 5/4, it’s more cyclical, about turning in circles, and Vikivaki is actually turning in circles, which obviously the whirling dervishes do in Sufism. In a 2019 interview, she explained the song again:"In Conversation—Björk & Llewellyn Vaughan-Lee". July 2019. The Golden Sufi Center. I based one of my songs “Atom Dance” on the fantasy of Nordic mythology and sufism uniting. The song is in 5/4, and in a cyclical style, kinda tapping playfully into the movement of the whirling dervishes but also into “vikivaki,” a Scandinavian circular dance. Of course the lyric is about the art of loving. I wrote it with my friend philosopher and author Oddný Eir. she pointed out to me another homemade theory I discussed in an earlier talk with timothy morton: the theory is an attempt to place all religions and spiritualities on over-simplified scale from feminine to the masculine. If so: then zen Buddism would be the most abstract and male and about placing oneself outside feelings, empty oneself, empty oneself until one reaches nirvana and becomes part of the whole in ecstasy. And Sufism would then be on the opposite end, hyper female, complete abandon and constantly fall in love everything, the day, the food one is eating, the people around and the moment and swirl into ecstasy until one reaches a peak and empties oneself in a sublime state? 2 different routes to the same destination? I have probably always been attracted by this total abandon route .... but perhaps these are bad cliches about Sufism. You talk about the extreme pain of it too, and your branch of Sufi, is it without music? Lyrics References Category:Songs Category:Vulnicura Category:Vulnicura songs